Tag Archives: masks

Snorkelling is great. It’s a fun, relatively risk-free way to explore the underwater world in shallow waters. But it’s not without its challenges, one of which is that it’s only possible to breathe through your mouth while submerged. Easy as that sounds, it’s also easily forgotten. That’s why we dig the H2O Ninja Snorkel Mask. Not only does it look awesome, its full-face mask means you can breathe normally when your face is under water, while the clear bubble cover gives you an unobstructed view of your surroundings. There’s even a mount for a Go-Pro so that you can record your adventures and share them with your friends. Granted, at $145 it’s not cheap, but this is definitely the slickest snorkelling mask we’ve ever seen and would drop the money in an instant… if we had that kind of disposable income.

You guys know about the Three Wolves Howling at the Moon shirt, right? It went pretty viral a few years ago… No? Well, whatever, if you do know it you’ll instantly fall in love with these awesome Wolf Masks. Yes, they’re made to resemble the wolves on the infamous shirt, and will instantly make you a hit among other Internet People that you come across your Halloween parties. It’s made from latex, which means it should be comfortable, and the eye holes are in the neck so that the wolf always looks like it’s howling at the moon. It’s pretty awesome, and it’s $32.50.

It’s very often not until you actually have to do something that you realize just how hard it is to accomplish. Like… how often have you thought about how complicated it could be to get a decent HD-POV video underwater? Like, where will you attach your GoPro, at least for a reasonable amount of money? Thanko Japan often has answers to these kinds of questions, and in this case doesn’t disappoint with the $49 GoPro Underwater Mask. As you can tell, it’s a simple mask for tasks like snorkelling, and comes with a standard GoPro mount, which will work with any version from the Hero2 onwards. It sure beats holding the cam in one hand and trying to swim with the other.

Snorkelling is fun, but it has its challenges. You have to breathe through your mouth, your field of vision is limited, salty water can get in and the visor often gets fogged up. The EasyBreath snorkelling device appears to fix all of that. Instead of the traditional U-shaped snorkel and eyes-only glasses, this device wraps around your entire face, allowing you to breathe normally. A double flow of air insures no fogging up, while the shape of the mask gives you 180°. Also, the top of the snorkel features a mechanism that prevents water from entering, while its bright red colour alerts people on the surface of your presence.

It’ll be on sale online in the spring on this year for 40€, or roughly $54.

If you’re willing to give up on the idea of getting all your sleep done in one go (called monophasic sleep), then the NeuroOn mask might be able to help you cram more hours into your day by gradually inducing your body into a polyphasic sleep pattern, eventually resulting in as little as two hours of sleep a day (if that’s what you want). It does this by monitoring not just your movement, as less sophisticated sleep trackers do, but also your eye movement, your brain waves, and muscle tension. Through all these sensors it’s able to precisely detect the start of REM sleep, and will wake you up exactly after the last REM stage. Depending on your settings, you can train your body to get its rest through a series of power naps scattered throughout the day.

This method of sleep has been used by many notable names throughout history, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Tesla, Churchill and even Napoleon. No, spending less time sleeping doesn’t mean you’ll be able to conquer Europe, but it does show that at least in these cases the strategy didn’t translate into decreased productivity.

Unfortunately, we missed the news when it was first reported and the Kickstarter through which you could have bought it has now closed. We imagine they’ll be busy manufacturing their first production run, after which the product will become available once more. It was a $250 pledge, so it’ll likely be around the $300 mark once it’s available for everyone.

Sleeping can sometimes be a task, especially in crowded environments. The Hibermate wants to help you, both by covering your eyes and ears and enveloping you in a quiet cocoon, and by looking so conspicuous that anyone around you will get the hint that you’d like to be left alone to sleep. The inside of the sleep mask has recessed areas for the eyes so that you can still open them, and also so that it doesn’t exert any pressure while you sleep. The silky outer satin covers make the Hibermate slip against the pillow sheets, so that the entire mask doesn’t move. The high quality, jersey-cotton inner is comfortable against the skin, warm & cozy in winter, cool and breathable in summer. So while it looks like a regular sleeping mask, the Hibermate is anything but. A $40 pledge will get you your own, with an October delivery target.

We think that Michael Jackson (RIP) should have worn the above ski masks/hood masks. It would have been just as strange as his other media-avoiding getups, but it would have had a kind of geek cred that we could have easily gotten behind. The Pixelhead is made to order by one Martin Backes, and when worn makes you looks like your head was digitally manipulated to be removed from the image. It’s pretty clever, if not really creepy. It’s made from highly non-fade polyester (80%) and elastane (20%) in a multi-week process of printing and sewing. We’re… not sure why it takes that long, but hey, that’s the way it is. Also, the Pixelhead is a limited edition item, with only 333 being made. If you see yourself having the balls to venture outside looking like this, it’ll cost you a pretty $192.

A Japanese company called REAL-f has gotten itself in the dubious business of manufacturing ultra-realistic 3D replicas of your face, which they call 3DPFs (“3 Dimension Photo Forms”). These can be made into mask form or full head form and cost a truckload of money. The first mask is $3,920 while each additional replica of it goes for $780. But the full head starts at $5,875 and each additional copy a mere $1,960. They make these masks by taking a series of photos from different angles and heat molding a piece of vinyl chloride resin. The photo-realism is so accurate that it’s said even blood vessels and iris details are replicated accurately.

Of course the obvious thought is that Halloween is coming and wouldn’t these make an awesome disguise? But at $4k+ a pop, we think we’ll settle for getting ourselves a Bieberlicious mask and terrorizing the neighborhood on the cheap instead.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.